Artificial intelligence is rapidly reshaping how procurement teams approach category planning and strategy development. AI tools are now routinely used to structure thinking, analyse markets and accelerate the production of category strategy frameworks.

In many respects, this is a positive shift. AI brings speed, consistency and clarity at a time when procurement teams are under relentless pressure to do more with less. It helps teams move faster, explore scenarios and build structured outputs in a fraction of the time previously required.

However, as AI becomes more embedded in procurement decision-making, a less discussed risk is beginning to surface: the provenance and credibility of the insight that AI produces.

The Hidden Bias in Publicly Available Insight

AI tools are trained on a broad mix of public, licensed and human-created content. In procurement, this presents a particular challenge due to the absence of practitioner decision logic, which is rarely documented, indexed or visible to AI systems.

Unlike suppliers, procurement functions rarely publish their detailed category strategies, negotiation approaches or commercial trade-offs. What is widely available, however, is supplier-generated content: market reports, white papers, ‘best practice’ frameworks and solution-led narratives.

The unintended consequence is that AI-generated insight can reflect supplier perspectives more strongly than practitioner reality, not by design, but because supplier viewpoints are more visible and consistently documented. Strategies may appear logical, comprehensive and well structured, yet still fail to align with how experienced category managers operate under today’s commercial, macroeconomic and technological pressures.

In recent CASME RoundTables, category leaders have repeatedly highlighted this challenge. While AI-generated frameworks are often seen as helpful starting points, participants frequently note that the outputs can lean towards supplier-friendly narratives or overly standardised ‘best practice’ approaches.

As many leaders observed, the real difficulty lies in adapting these outputs to reflect current market conditions, internal risk appetite and the trade-offs procurement teams are actively making; factors that are rarely visible in publicly available content.

This is not a failure of AI. It is a limitation of its inputs.

What this means for procurement leaders:

• Treat AI-generated strategies as hypotheses, not answers
• Explicitly test which assumptions are based on experience versus published logic
• Stress-test outputs against current market conditions, internal constraints and stakeholder realities.

The most valuable elements of category strategy, judgement under constraint, trade-offs, political context and risk appetite, remain largely tacit and experience-based.

Why Credibility Matters More Than Ever

For procurement leaders, the challenge is rarely a lack of insight. Data, tools and analysis are more accessible than ever before.

The real issue emerges in the stakeholder conversation.

When recommendations are sound, but confidence is lacking.
When strategies look right on paper, but senior stakeholders still question them.
When Procurement is asked not just what it recommends, but how confident it is in the recommendation.

CASME members frequently report this tension emerging when procurement teams present AI-supported or AI-written strategies to senior stakeholders. The logic is sound and the structure is clear, yet questions quickly surface around relevance and confidence.

Stakeholders probe how the strategy reflects current market realities, how peers are responding to similar challenges, and whether the approach has been tested beyond a theoretical framework. In these moments, the issue is rarely the quality of the output; it is the absence of visible practitioner validation behind it.

In these situations, credibility matters more than speed. Stakeholders want reassurance that strategies are grounded in real-world practice, not abstract logic or supplier-led assumptions.

AI as an Accelerator, Not a Substitute

High-performing procurement teams are increasingly clear-sighted about AI’s role. They use it as an accelerator of thinking, not a substitute for practitioner insight.

AI helps teams move faster. Independent, peer-led intelligence helps them move with confidence.

By validating AI-generated outputs against insight created and challenged by experienced category managers, procurement teams reduce risk and strengthen their internal credibility. They are better equipped to answer the questions that matter most to stakeholders:

• Is this how leading teams are really operating today?
• Is this approach proven in current market conditions?
• What trade-offs are others making in similar environments?

Answering these questions requires more than faster analysis. It requires exposure to how peers are actually making decisions under similar conditions.

Why Peer Insight is a Strategic Differentiator

For more than 20 years, CASME has brought procurement leaders together not simply to share insight, but to test and challenge their thinking with peers facing similar pressures. 

This intelligence is not theoretical. It is shaped through discussion, comparison and debate between practitioners actively managing categories in complex, volatile and highly scrutinised environments. It reflects real decisions, real constraints and real trade-offs; not idealised frameworks or vendor-led narratives.

Crucially, this peer-led environment exposes where strategies hold up and where they do not. It highlights where AI-generated outputs align with practitioner reality, and where assumptions need to be challenged before they are scrutinised elsewhere. 

In a time of rapid technological change, this kind of peer-informed perspective provides a critical reality check, helping procurement leaders strengthen judgement, build confidence and ensure strategies reflect what leading procurement teams are actually doing, rather than what simply appears logical or widely published. 

AI will continue to play a vital role in procurement processes. But confidence, credibility and better commercial outcomes will always depend on insight grounded in real practitioner experience and tested under real-world conditions.

Ground your strategy in practitioner reality

CASME helps procurement teams validate strategy through peer-led insight, benchmarking and facilitated conversations with experienced category managers and senior procurement leaders.

Find out how leading organisations are building confidence behind their decisions.